Unemployed Nurses picket at Finance and Health Ministries

Hundreds of health professionals who are due for posting but have not yet received their postings, on Monday picketed around the premises of the Ministry of Health (MOH), to press home their demand for financial clearance, so they could be posted.

Mr. Michael Adongo Ayibasa, President of the Bonded Nurses Association, told the Ghana News Agency that the picketing health professionals, had been told that what was left to be done for them to be employed was financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.

He said a number of their leaders were meeting with officials of the ministry to sort out their demands.

Mr. Ayibasa also said one other reason they were picketing was to protest against being employed under the Heal Ghana Programme under National Builders Corp (NABCO).

He said they had been promised by the government that 32,000 health workers would be employed by the end of March, 2018, out of which 27,000 would be nurses, but added that the promise had not been fulfilled, “and we are now in May”

Mr. Ayibasa noted, that from November 2016, health professionals who are due for posting had been pressing home their demands to the government to no avail.

He said they planned to hold the protest until they realised their demand had been well heeded to.

Mr Bright Bell, the President of the Coalition of Allied Health Graduates, said because they were given student allowances while in school, they were mandated to serve as health officials for five years before they could seek job opportunities outside Ghana.

He said because of that, they needed jobs that lasted more than three years, which was the length of the service stipulated under the NACOB Heal Ghana contract.

Mr. Bell said there were job vacancies in the health sector as a result of people retiring and being reposted, adding that these vacancies could be filled by unemployed health workers.

He said without financial clearance which could only be granted by the Ministry of Finance, they could not be posted for permanent jobs.

Source: GNA